Brisk Collages and BricolagesArtistic Audits of Mainstream Media in Recent Canadian Shorts

Johanna Householder and b.h. Yael, December 31, 2000 (video)

20 Jul 2005 – 27 Jul 2005

The collective La Femme 100 Têtes, in collaboration with Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, presents Brisk Collages and Bricolages, Canadian found-footage films and videos that appropriate, audit and revise snippets of movies and TV shows. The screenings take place in the Bell Auditorium, NSCAD University, July 20 and 27, 7-9 pm.

Experimental media artists by definition use unconventional techniques to tackle burning issues, express personal opinions and spark critical debates. Given the rapid pace at which cultural industries re-appropriate avant-garde tactics and styles, media artists increasingly respond by reworking the images and texts delivered by mainstream media. As a result, shock value is restored to some of the most provocative footage in circulation.

Part 1: Re-Rendered Gender (20 July 2005)

On 20 July, Part 1, Re-Rendered Gender features Toronto-based artist and former Clichette Johanna Householder, who will present a series of videos produced in collaboration with film-maker, video and installation artist bh Yael. This screening of three works marks the première of Verbatim 2005, a parodic remake of scenes from The Passion of the Christ. Other videos by these artists hilariously send up 2001: A Space Odyssey and Apocalypse Now. The evening’s program includes works by Dara Gellman, Alissa Firth-Eagland, Daniel Cockburn, Kevin Kelly, Lise Beaudry and Jean-François Monette, whose treatments of existing footage offer fresh, often humourous perspectives on themes involving gender and sexuality.

Part 2: Re-Polished Politics (27 July 2005)

The program resumes on 27 July with Part 2, Re-Polished Politics, and includes works by Alissa Firth-Eagland, Juliana Saragosa, Richard Kerr, Daniel Borins, Tasman Richardson, Barbara Prokop, Frédéric Miffet, Richard Fung, Aleesa Cohene, Roberto Ariganello, and Dennis Day. These works lift images from popular culture and re-frame them in ways that expose both the strategies behind their creation and the psychology involved in their reception.

The tongue-twisting title of this film and video program continues the tradition established by the preceding series, Changing Times, Time Changes (2002) and Placing Spaces, Spacing Places (2003). In each of these film and video programs, series curator Gerda Cammaer highlights an aspect of contemporary media artists’ aesthetic and thematic preoccupations. La Femme 100 Têtes (The Hundred Headless Woman) is a curatorial collective dedicated to the presentation of independent film and video in a visual art context. Members of the collective – Gerda Cammaer, Barbara Sternberg and Ingrid Jenkner – believe that the most evanescent of moving-image media, that is, films and videos by artists, merit a substantial platform in Halifax. MSVU Art Gallery is its platform.